Once More on the Battlefield, Soldier
by Auburn Red
Summary: X-Over with The Maltese Falcon. They had different names, but a shared past. That wasn't all that they shared.


Once More on the Battlefield, Soldier

By Auburn Red

X-Over between Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon.

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. Ugarte, Rick Blaine, and Senor Ferrari belong to The Epstein Brothers, Michael Curtiz and Warner Bros. Joel Cairo, Gutman, Sam Spade, and Wilmer belong to Dashiell Hammett, John Huston, and Warner Bros. There is no profit, just entertainment.

Author's note: This is dedicated to the talent and memories of Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Elisha Cook Jr., and Humphrey Bogart putting some of their most famous iconic roles together.

There were two things that you never asked in Casablanca: Where people came from or where they were going. When Adriano Ugarte heard that the Café Americain's owner had left, he didn't ask either. Besides rumors would fly anyway, he was sent to a concentration camp or got on the plane to Lisbon. Those were the usual theories. Occasionally someone might throw in a "got arrested by Captain Renault and returned to Occupied Europe." But Ugarte learned not to ask or question, though he was curious what happened to Mr. Smith and who the new owner would be. It was better to pretend not to be interested. To be interested would be a sign of conspiracy and that was the last thing that he needed during his current occupation.

Ugarte took the refugee's money. Then he forged the perfect signature to send the man and his wife on their way. "Danke Senor Ugarte," the man said with the same tearful relieved expression that many refugees had when they spoke to Ugarte or anyone who could help.

"You're welcome," Ugarte replied. "Just doing my part to help people escape from der Fuhrer." Ugarte quipped as the man left. _And of course filling my pocket book is an added bonus_, Ugarte thought as he placed the gold coins in his pockets. He ordered a celebratory glass of champagne from the bar. He sipped as he took in the Moroccan nightlife.

He noticed a man in a dark coat approach him. "Signor Ugarte, Signor Ferrari wants to speak with you."

Ugarte sipped his champagne. "I'm sorry, monsieur; I am not familiar with the gentleman." Not personally, but Ugarte was familiar with Ferrari's reputation. He had dealings with various underworld figures and conveniently was never at the scene of any crime."I cannot imagine what he would have to say to me."

"He is waiting at the Blue Parrot," the man replied. "He said to tell you that he hasn't seen the bird since Cairo."

Ugarte froze feeling panic fill his heart and into his chest. He maintained his composure in front of the stranger. "I will see him immediately," Ugarte replied.

Ugarte winced as the sun blinded him. He walked towards the Blue Parrot. He could smell opium already before he even entered the building. The beaded curtain hit his backside as he entered. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The pungent smell of opium made him feel ill and gave him cravings for addictions that he had long abandoned. He had a feeling that he shouldn't be here.

"We meet once more on the battlefield, soldier," said a husky cultured voice that Ugarte knew so well. Ugarte breathed a silent prayer to Saint Madonna as to why she would curse him with such a fate. Just to cover bases, he prayed to Allah as well figuring his mother's deity would work if his father's did not. He turned to face the large man seated. He was as heavy as ever and looked at the smaller man with amusement that filled his blubbering face. He was older than Ugarte remembered, but other than that he was still the same.

The small criminal decided to play innocent "Do I know you Signor?" he asked.

Ferrari laughed and smoked the hookah pipe. "Yes let's play our aliases. I am Signor Giuseppe Ferrari and you are Signor Adriano Ugarte. I suppose Edgar Allen Poe was right, the best place to hide is in plain sight. With someone of your …coloring and mixed background, it's the perfect cover. You don't belong anywhere, yet you could blend in everywhere. Imagine trying to look for you under various aliases only to discover that you escaped to Africa using your birth name instead of one of your many pseudonyms such as Mr. Joel Cairo."

Ugarte tried not to react under that name, but he had a feeling that Ferrari could see him hyperventilating. "I have no idea whom you are referring to, Signor, but you must have me mistaken for someone else. If you will be so kind as to let me pass-"Ugarte stepped away but Ferrari grabbed the smaller man's arm. Ugarte winced at the pain that seared through his arm. He forgot that when he knew Ferrari as Kasper Gutman he had quite a strong grip.

"You will leave when I tell you to and not a moment before so sit down!" He said the last two words with such force and venom that Ugarte sat down. Ferrari held out a gold cigarette holder. "Cigarette?" Ugarte didn't trust himself to do anything else but nod and take a cigarette. "Let's see last I saw you, you had fled a prison sentence taking with you a sum of $10,000 of my money and a certain gunsel that we both knew very intimately. So you are here in Casablanca sans money and gunsel. I imagine the money was spent and as for the gunsel- well I wonder what became of him."

Ugarte winced not letting the fat man see any emotion that threatened to come. "It doesn't concern you, Mr. Gutman."

Ferrari nee Gutman grinned at the acknowledgement of his other name. "I'm afraid that it does Mr. Cairo. You see I know that you and Wilmer had an affair for a long time, since we were looking for the falcon in Istanbul. Am I right?" Cairo nodded remembering the quiet serious young man that always shadowed the older man. Cairo didn't know what it was, maybe the challenge of seducing a young man that seemed so serious and sober looking. Maybe it was the thrill and danger of having sex with his boss' younger boyfriend. Maybe, Wilmer reminded Ugarte so much of himself when he was younger, a young orphan that had been seduced and abandoned by so many older men that he had only one option; to break anyone before they ever broke him.

He remembered that night in Istanbul. He arrived at the hotel his head was swimming with alcohol and bravado after performing a con job. There Wilmer was alone drinking in the hotel bar, without Gutman. Cairo didn't cajole or bribe. All he said was "My room is upstairs 515. It will be unlocked, if you're interested." Later that night, Cairo wasn't surprised to hear the door creak open and Wilmer enter. He and Wilmer had that one night in Istanbul that was worth more than the other nights particularly the wild goose chase for the Maltese Falcon.

Ferrari continued. "Your affair continued in San Francisco, I knew with that pleased grin, Wilmer did not always leave to follow Spade. I believe he was a frequent nightly guest at the Hotel Belvedere, was he not?" Cairo said nothing just glared at his former employer as he continued. "After Spade had us arrested, I suppose you had arrangements to escape from prison with Wilmer. You were clever. You forged my signature and withdrew some of my money. $10,000 is enough to take you far perhaps to Europe. Of course Germany was not the most welcome place for men of our 'persuasion' is it?"

Cairo shook his head. He and Wilmer had experienced the high life of Europe, the cabarets, the casinos, the clubs, parties, or rather Cairo did. Wilmer often kept his distance, always standing by protective over his new lover shooting if he needed to and threatening various enemies. But the young man could always be brought to smile in private with Cairo. Cairo remembered fondly the many times when he returned from a party intoxicated and high after sleeping with some rich handsome mysterious stranger. Wilmer always drove him home and helped him into bed with that tough but tender approach that he always had. True, Cairo drank too much, did too many drugs, and had wild unpredictable flings with many men who were handsome, charismatic, and brutal, but it was Wilmer that he always felt safe around. Wilmer comforted him and nursed his hangovers and bruises from those rough nights in the European towns. He did so much for his older flamboyant lover, but expected so little. Ultimately Wilmer made him feel things that he had never felt for anyone before, things that he could never describe and never wanted to name

"Now what happened in Berlin, I imagine? Does it upset you?" Gutman asked touching Cairo's shoulder as though he were a father to a son.

Ugarte looked down at his legs and the table. His head swam with the opium, the heat, and the memory. He forced himself to stay as stoic as his late lover. "Nothing upsets me anymore, sir," he said. "He knew the risk and you know me better than that." Cairo spoke with that cynical laugh, but he didn't expect Gutman believed it anymore than he himself did.

He remembered that night when the Gestapo stormed into their flat. They should have left earlier, but they ignored the warning signs, the election of Hitler, the rise of the SS, the laws, even the suspicious looks from soldiers. But they didn't pay attention, they just played along.

Cairo and Wilmer lay in each other's arms, but as soon as they entered, Wilmer jumped up ready as ever. "Run, Joe, run!" he yelled aiming his gun at the intruders. Cairo crawled onto the floor and slunk away running out the fire escape. The next months were a blur of Ugarte begging, borrowing, or stealing money and creating a false identity, or rather reverting to his original birth identity, to leave Europe and fleeing to Casablanca where he had been for the past year. He forced Wilmer from his mind becoming as he was before knowing the quiet gunman, an entity who existed for hedonistic pleasure neither for nothing nor no one else.

"I suppose they didn't shoot him did they?" Gutman said toying with the smaller man's emotion like a cat with a string. "No, that would be too kind. They sent him to a concentration camp, where they tortured him, starved, beat him, and eventually castrated and gassed him to death. Belsen was it?"

Ugarte corrected. "Dachau."Ferrari nodded as if the oversight was intentional and he was trying to draw his former employee out. Ugarte tried to force himself to remain calm and unemotional. His eyes watered but he kept the tears from falling. He remembered a man who knew Wilmer in Dachau told him. He was the first that he sent out of Casablanca upon his arrival. The man told him that the gunsel's final words to the soldiers were, "Shove off!" before they led him to the chamber. Cairo smiled with pride at that.

"You didn't just send me here to reminisce about old times and old friends, what do you want, Signor?" Ugarte asked.

Ferrari grinned then leaned over to Ugarte. "I want you to remember that you belong to me. You don't make a move without my knowledge and you certainly do not steal from me. For every deal that you make, I want 30% of the take until you pay off the financial debt and as for the other debt you owe me…" He touched the smaller man's leg. "Well I think we can make a sort of arrangement for that."

Ugarte feeling like he had been slapped. He stared at the old man, his eyes bulging. "You fat stupid ignoramus!" He hissed so his voice sounded strangled. "To think that I would give you my money or…. You make me sick!"

Ferrari smiled as though Ugarte were a petulant child who learned to swear for the first time. "I think you will see that you have no choice."

"You cannot have anything that I can possibly want! I am not the little assistant that you once knew. I am no longer in your employ nor do I wish to be!" Ugarte stood up to leave.

"That's what you think," Ferrari said. "I have a lot of pull here in Casablanca particularly from the local constabulary."

"And what you'll expose me?" Ugarte sneered. "Do you think anyone cares here?"

"Probably not but in their routine inspections I assume the Gestapo would be thrilled to learn that an "invert" had escaped from the country. I imagine you would find yourself in Dachau, fitting in a way," the fat man smiled at the delicious irony.

"You couldn't do that," Ugarte declared.

"No, did it ever occur to you how the Gestapo found you that night in Berlin?" Ugarte's heart sank and he fell violently ill. "They just appeared mysteriously one night. Strange is not, as though they were summoned by a random citizen?"

The small man stared in shock at his former employer. "You-?"

"You see, Mr. Cairo I am not as naïve as I seem," Gutman replied. "I know that I am an old man and that young men such as Wilmer had certain needs that a person of my age could no longer fill. That you two were together did not upset me, but you see no one steals from me! Whether it is money, possessions, or employees that fill my needs in more ways than one. If I could do that to Wilmer with just one phone call when I was in a different city, imagine what I can do to you when we are right here next to each other."

Ugarte sank down wearily. Whether he was Gutman or Ferrari, he pulled the trigger just as he always had. He knew that he lost. "Now, do you understand?" Ferrari asked.

Ugarte nodded mechanically. "Yes, Mr. Gutman."

"Now now, Signor Ferrari will do," Ferrari reminded him. "Do you understand that you belong to me and that you will never leave?"

Ugarte nodded. "Yes, Signor Ferrari, I do."

Ferrari smiled and waved his hand. "Good, I will expect my first payment tomorrow night. You may go now."

Ugarte rose from the chair feeling dizzy as he staggered out of the Blue Parrot. The light blinded him as he exited to his small flat to sleep during the sweltering day_. The sooner I get out of Casablanca, the_ _better_, he thought bitterly.

Later the next night, Ugarte entered the Café Americain swaggering to hide the growing tension inside. He waved at a patron that he had a more than passing acquaintance with. He shivered remembering the scene at the Blue Parrot when he handed the percentage to Ferrari. He felt ill with that old man on top of him fondling him like an octopus or a whale. He wondered how Wilmer could have ever stood him. His only option until he raised enough money to flee Casablanca would be to get in bed, figuratively unless by persuasion, with another figure one whom Ugarte could pass information to in exchange for protection. Ugarte nodded at Captain Louis Renault. He considered for a minute, but just as quickly disregarded the option. He and Captain Renault were in competing businesses furnishing exit visas and forged documents for expatriates. Renault's protection would amount to very little for Ugarte.

He accepted some wine from the bar and glanced at the piano player, a black American man. Ugarte had never seen him before. He called the bartender over, a Russian by the name of Sasha. "Who is the piano player?" he asked.

Sasha glanced over at the man playing a George Gershwin tune. "Oh that is Sam, he arrived with Mr. Blaine."

"Who's Mr. Blaine?" Ugarte asked.

"Rick Blaine, the new owner," Sasha said. "He bought or rather won the Café last night in a game of poker."

"Maybe I should have a talk with him," Ugarte offered.

Sasha shook his head. "Mr. Blaine does not drink with customers."

"Why not?" the small man asked.

The Russian shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. That's just what he said, I don't drink with customers."

Ugarte bristled. "Well I suppose I will just forget it then." He looked around and saw two or three people walking into what appeared to be a private room. The small man followed furtively and pushed himself behind a woman who was exiting.

"What are you doing here?" asked an abrasive American voice.

"Mr. Blaine, I would like to make a deal with you-" Ugarte began. But when he turned around, he got the shock of his life! He was looking straight at Sam Spade! "Spade!" Ugarte gasped. He wondered again why Saint Madonna and Allah would curse him with such a fate.

Blaine looked at the newcomer with no recognition, nothing more than confusion and irritation at the interruption. "No," he said. "Who are you?"

Ugarte recomposed himself realizing that the man wasn't Spade and stuck out his hand in friendship. "Allow me to introduce myself, sir. I am Adriano Ugarte and it would be my pleasure to assist you in any needs. "

Rick lit a cigarette and scowled at the smaller man. "Now what needs do you think that I would require your help with."

"You are new to Casablanca, are you not?" Ugarte invited. "You may need information on the locals to befriend and to avoid. Perhaps documentation to get you through."

Blaine smiled thinly. "And I'm sure that it wouldn't cost me a thing."

"Well one must get by, Monsieur Blaine," Ugarte replied. "In this bedeviled world. "

"There's a word for people like you, Ugarte," Rick said. Ugarte stood up straight and smiled at the intending compliment. "A parasite, one who lives off of others." The smile froze. "I think you'd better go, Ugarte while I am still in a fairly good mood."

Ugarte nodded. "I see that we will not agree for now. I will be on my way."

"Yeah, you do that." Rick agreed. His voice and demeanor were completely icy. "Oh and Ugarte." The small man turned to face the American. "You come into this office again and I will have you thrown out."

Ugarte left the small private office and stepped into the bar. He sat in a private booth and listened to the music. Maybe Blaine would help him. Maybe he could convince Ferrari to end his deal or threaten him. Maybe tomorrow an expatriate would give him enough money to leave. For now he would just live for the night, the drink, and possibly a bed. That was all he needed in this world, all he would ever need.

The End


End file.
